


bony knees

by phollie



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Birthday, Coming of Age, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phollie/pseuds/phollie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren’s shadow looks so tall as it stretches across the floor, a dark and distorted image of himself blooming from where he stands. It’s the only darkness Armin has ever wanted to drown in. // Eremin, first kiss. Inspired by verygently@tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bony knees

::

**bony knees.**

::

_remember the days you’ve counted won’t be forgotten_  
 _i hope you won’t leave yourself out_

_\- pages,_ there for tomorrow

::

Eren’s fourteenth birthday is just as uninspiring as any other day spent in what Armin has heard the others call a “brick shithouse”, though he isn’t sure what that means. The other soldiers know nothing of it being Eren’s birthday, and Armin knows he prefers it that way; the sentimentality of birthdays has always grated at Eren’s nerves, he scoffs at it, turns up his long, sharp nose and denies himself of any goodness or enjoyment.  _Just another year you went without dying_ , he says, and Armin thinks that’s a little bleak, but then again, haven’t things always been that way? Eren’s voice rings around his head and he hears him asking,  _What good is it anyway? Shouldn’t it be a day where the mother gets to celebrate? She did all the work._ We _didn’t do anything to get born._

Then Eren gets quiet and Armin wishes the trainees wouldn’t look at him with those eyes that ask,  _What’s wrong with this kid?_

There’s nothing wrong with him.  _There’s nothing wrong with Eren, please don’t look at him that way._ These are the words that Armin can’t speak aloud, and wouldn’t even if he could. Eren doesn’t want defending. Eren doesn’t need someone weak trying to make him look strong. Eren’s already strong. He’s just hurting. He’s just hungry. This fact Armin knows more intimately than anyone ever could, and it’s that unspoken understanding between them that has Eren grabbing Armin’s hand beneath the table and squeezing hard, but not hard enough to hurt. Eren holds himself back when he touches him, and he’s been touching him an awful (wonderful) lot lately; the other night he wrapped his arm around Armin’s shoulders as they walked back from dinner, and Eren hadn’t needed to explain why, and Armin hadn’t needed to ask in the first place. He never needs to ask. Most of the time, the two of them barely even need to speak in order to understand, and for someone like Armin who stays afloat in the world through his words, that makes him feel kind of dizzy, a little too happy to be safe.

Tonight, now fourteen years old and a number away from Armin’s thirteen, Eren touches Armin’s wrist beneath the table, finds his fingers and laces them together. No one in the dining hall has to know, not even Mikasa who watches Eren with her dark eyes and that quiet, stoic sort of worry that the boys know so well. When she asks over the dull roar of everyone else’s conversations if Eren’s okay, how are you feeling, did you get enough to eat, Eren’s only response is three consecutive, agitated nods and a slight tightening in his hold of Armin’s hand beneath the table. Armin squeezes his hand back. When Sasha pulls Mikasa into her conversation, distracting her, Armin whispers,  _It’s okay._

_No, it’s not. It hasn’t been okay in a long time, Armin._

_But one day it will be. I’m here with you, okay?_

_…Okay._

Armin tries to give him his dinner roll as a birthday present, but Eren puts it right back on his tray, refusing it in that steadfast, well-meaning way of his.  _You need to eat more, you’re too skinny._

Armin touches Eren’s inner wrist with his fingertips, smiles a little.  _You sound like Mikasa when you talk like that._

_It’s different._

Armin’s fingertips are hot against Eren’s palm. There are people laughing all around them and it’s terrifying to know that these people could die one day. Naturally Armin knows all living things die, but these people, they’re just kids. They could die fifty, sixty years too soon. Eren could be dead by twenty -

Armin’s stomach turns over and he decides not to think about Eren dying anymore. It makes him feel as though the war has already started and he’s right at the front lines, staring down the face of death and unable to turn away before he’s crushed beneath its weight.

The mess hall clears out, and the other trainees in their squad disperse to leisure around outside, not wanting to retire for the night just yet. And it is a lovely night, lovely in that the moon still hangs in its rightful place and hasn’t been torn out of the sky by monsters, lovely in that they all have time before they’re thrown out into chaos and swallowed into a darkness that even the night couldn’t rival.

Mikasa doesn’t tell Eren happy birthday, because Armin knows that she knows, and what they know is that those words will tear Eren apart and they love him too much for that. _It’s different_ , Eren says again, whispering it to Armin as Mikasa parts from them to her respective quarters

 _How different?_ Armin asks, finding his hand again.

 _Really, really different._ Eren laces their fingers together like stitches closing a wound.  _I’m not good with words. But it’s different. That’s all I know._

That’s all he knows, and that’s all Armin needs.

When Eren leads him back to the barracks, they’re the only two in the whole place, and it’s quiet. Eren’s shadow looks so tall as it stretches across the floor, a dark and distorted image of himself blooming from where he stands.It’s the only darkness Armin has ever wanted to drown in.

They don’t have to speak. Eren’s still holding his hand, and his manic eyes are fixed on something Armin can’t see. His shoulders shake. Outside, a brisk wind blows, rattling against the windows.

Eren sags against him and Armin guides him to the bed, too weak to carry him but doing what he can, always trying his best. They sit before each other on Armin’s bed, the bottom bunk. ( _I’m taking the top bunk,_ Eren had told him their first night here. _I’m worried you’ll roll over and fall off in your sleep._ Armin could have kissed him then and not in just a friend way, but he doesn’t know how to do that and he gets the feeling that he’d probably be very bad at it, so he keeps his lips to himself, even if it aches.)

They’re silent for a long time, and then Eren asks in a voice that sounds like a bruise:  _Did you remember it’s my birthday?_

 _Of course I did._ Armin turns off the lantern that someone left burning on the nightstand before dinner; probably Eren, because he’s been awfully forgetful these days, but that’s okay.  _I remember every year. I just didn’t think you wanted me to._

 _I didn’t._ But Eren’s face screws up funny at that, like he doesn’t understand his own words.  _I don’t know. I don’t know what I wanted._

He looks like he might start crying, and Armin knows he will if he needs to. Eren has cried in front of him so many times; it’s comfortable and it’s familiar to Eren, they’re so close, friends till the end, though it never stops being painful to watch the tears fall. Sometimes Armin wonders if Eren feels okay with letting himself go in front of him because Armin himself is so frail, so bruisable in the face of the universe that has beaten him time and time again. If that’s the case, then Armin doesn’t think he minds that at all. They can be bruised together.

_Then how about what you want right now, Eren?_

Eren looks at him for a long time, the many shadows passing over his face until he’s one of them. Armin’s tongue feels too big for his mouth as he stares at him, waiting for something to happen, waiting for Eren to speak, to not speak, to move, to stay where he is, to do anything at all that might push Armin in some sort of direction before he does something stupid.

But they’ve always been a bit foolish when it comes to each other, and that’s why Armin doesn’t try to force logic onto a situation where it’s not needed as he and Eren awkwardly gravitate towards each other, leaning across the narrow bed to get closer to one another. Armin’s heart is pounding in his ears and he’s counting down the moments before their lips will meet - six seconds if they keep moving this slowly, now five, oh god - and Eren looks confused, determined, thinking ten thousand things all at once that Armin can read in his eyes.

They stop at the two second mark, hovering right before each other, almost touching. Armin is holding his breath, but he can feel Eren’s puffing out warm on his face, on his mouth. It’s unsteady and shallow and if Armin could breathe into him to stabilize it, he would, but he’s pretty sure that’s not how it works and now he’s overthinking things again and his head is spinning as Eren just looks at him in the darkness and the silence.

 _What should I say?_ Armin asks.

Eren looks at him for a moment longer before he shakes his head in a way that reminds Armin he doesn’t have to say anything. No happy-birthdays, no it’s-gonna-be-okays, nothing at all. Armin understands, he always understands, and he isn’t sure who moves in first but his breath cuts out short when they knock together and their lips meet. He thinks Eren’s eyes are still open, and anyone else would likely think that’s bizarre because isn’t kissing supposed to be done with eyes closed? Armin doesn’t care, even as his own eyes flutter shut and he sinks against and into Eren, mouth parting tentatively to feel his breath stutter in the tiniest of gasps when Armin’s hands shakily rise to cup his face.

This isn’t like the other times they’ve done this as children, when in the middle of tending to Armin’s cuts and scrapes and busted lips, Eren would lean in without warning and plant quick, rough little kisses to his cheek, trying to be gentle but too angry at the injustice of the world to manage softness. One time Eren had missed Armin’s cheek and kissed his mouth instead, and Armin’s heart had soared way up high and never came back down, like a kite long lost. And it’s still up there somewhere, his heart, the kite, floating in ether and heat and the quiet hitches in Eren’s breath as they move in closer to each other. Eren’s hands are placed awkwardly on the sides of Armin’s head, his fingers in his hair, trying not to tug. Their teeth click together as their noses bump, and then there’s an uncertain touch of tongue, wet and soft; Eren lets out a noise that comes out a little too loud, making Armin jump and move closer all at once.

_It’s different._

_I know._

They kiss quietly, their hunger a soft and shivering thing that they hold with inexperienced hands just as they hold each other. Eren’s skin is hot, his mouth hot, his breath hotter - a brief and fleeting thought passes through Armin’s mind that he might as well be steaming, burning himself right up.

When the kiss is broken, they’re both panting, and Eren is crying. Armin dries his tears with the pads of his thumbs, kissing his cheeks with the innocence they once had as children. But the way his lips are still warm from Eren’s tells him that they’re not children anymore, and likely haven’t been for a long time. Likely never will be again.

Armin kisses him again as if to prove it, and Eren kisses him back, setting it in stone. They don’t ever have to speak. 


End file.
